Published on May 4, 1998
Back in their early days, David Coverdale and Whitesnake were a
hard rock band that mixed some great rock with some down-and-dirty
blues. Even their “breakthrough” album
Slide It In had a lot of “blooze” on it, and was an
incredible record.
So what the hell happened in 1987, when Coverdale came out with
this self-titled piece of dog crap? There’s a reason that people
thumbed their noses at Coverdale, calling Whitesnake a Led Zeppelin
ripoff at the time. Whitesnake became a hair band – and,
unfortunately, created their most popular album ever. May God have
mercy on us all.
With “special guest” Adrian Vandenberg on guitar (as well as
John Sykes on 6-string and vocals), Coverdale and crew seemed to
throw away their entire past (like “Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of
The City,” “Love Hunter” and “Slow ‘N’ Easy”) and moved to
arena-metal to please the hoards. “Still Of The Night” is a prime
example of cloning the great bands of the past. Going from
“balls-out” rock (and I use the term loosely) to gentle moment,
back to rock – didn’t The Firm do the
exact same thing on “Fortune Hunter”? (Jimmy Page was
supposedly also shocked that someone else would use the concept of
playing their guitar with a violin bow, as heard in the rhyhm
guitar riff in the bridge.)
Wait, it gets worse. “Here I Go Again” is probably better known
for the T-&-A video (featuring his soon-to-be wife Tawny
Kitaen, best known for such cinematic barfbags as “The Perils Of
Gwendolyn”) than the half-ass attempt to bridge ballad and rocker.
Nevertheless, it got lots of airplay, and Whitesnake soon became a
household word – proof that MTV was as much evil as it was
good.
Even the true power-ballad “Is This Love” is so much sappy swine
fodder that ignores the ten-year past history of Whitesnake,
selling out to the almighty gods of airplay. (Gee, does
this sound familiar these days, evidenced by four guys
calling themselves Metallica?) “Crying In The Rain” is a similar
failed attempt to merge ballad and power-rock. Sorry, guys, but I’m
convinced that marriage will just never happen perfectly.
Oh, Whitesnake does eventually try to return to their roots, via
“Children Of The Night” and “Straight For The Heart,” but the
glossy production of Mike Stone, topped with the sludge that
preceeded these songs, fails to help the band undo the damage.
What is truly a shame is that when Whitesnake was making music
that was worth people’s attention, we mostly ignored it. (I didn’t
know better, I was only 6, I think, when Whitesnake first came
forth, and was 16 when
Whitesnake came out.) With this drivel, people fawned all
over them. Maybe it was because they were the exact opposite of
some of the popular metal bands, like Poison and Motley Crue.
Whatever the case,
Whitesnake is about as palatable as Jack-In-The-Box
hamburgers left on the grill overnight. Someone kill this snake
before it strikes again.